From 2007-2011 this blog was mainly about my animals with a bit of off-topic chatter. Then my husband shocked me by confessing to an affair. We've divorced. Life is better than ever!

Monday, June 29, 2009

Applied foraging

I had found some tiny stainless steel buckets to use as foraging toys. I hadn't gotten around to putting them in the parrots' cages yet, so I decided to throw some safflower seeds in one and put it on the stand instead.

Although Max tried, she could not figure out how to get the seeds.

Not quite tall enough:Just a little further:Hopefully she'll have more success in her cage, where she can approach the problem from different angles.

Max really has more success with what I call "applied foraging." That is, foraging that doesn't involve any special parrot-specific foraging toys, but rather requires a keen sense of observation and timing of the parrot to discern when human food is available and least likely to be guarded by the humans.

For instance, eating some strawberry cobbler when Thomas is busy reading the paper:Or perhaps eating jelly when Thomas left the scene to put the peanut butter back in the fridge:Max is definitely the best parrot in our house at taking advantage of these opportunities!